


You Fall, I Fall

by SongOnTheWind



Category: Potterlock - Fandom, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Exchangelock AU Exchange 2014, M/M, Potterlock, Potterlock AU, exchangelock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongOnTheWind/pseuds/SongOnTheWind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months after Sherlock committed suicide by jumping off the Astronomy Tower, John is still struggling with the death of his friend. And when John starts seeing Sherlock around the halls of Hogwarts, John is convinced that he is going mad. Until Sherlock shows up in the Great Hall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Fall, I Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [tarklovishki.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tarklovishki.tumblr.com).



John was tired. He was tired of walking the halls, going to class, talking to people. But most of all, he was tired of not having Sherlock there with him.

It had only been two months--two god forsaken months--since Sherlock had jumped off the Astronomy Tower, and John was still numb from the pain. He remembered everything perfectly, down to the last detail, as though Sherlock’s plummet had only happened moments ago...

Two Months Ago  
Since Sherlock was a half-blood and John a muggle-born, both had cell phones which they used to keep in contact with each other and their families. So, when John received a text reading,  
Come to the outside of the astronomy tower  
SH  
He didn't think anything of it, and went to rendezvous with his friend.

When he got there, however, there hadn't been a soul in sight.

But then John’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“John,” said the deep voice at the other end.

“Hey, Sherlock, are you okay? Where are you?”

“Don’t move.”

“What? Why?” John was now getting concerned. There was something wrong, something in Sherlock’s voice.

“Just do as I ask! Please,” Sherlock’s voice cracked.

“Okay. Sherlock…”

“Okay, look up, I’m on the top of the tower.”

“Oh God.” Looking up, John saw the tall, slim figure of his best friend draped in a Ravenclaw robe, his black curls blowing in the slight breeze.

“I-I can’t come down so we’ll just have to do it like this.”

“W-What’s going on?” John stammered.

“An apology. It’s all true.” Sherlock was quiet.

“What?” John demanded.

“Everything they said about me. I was in league with Moriarty.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“I'm a fake.”

“Sherlock …”

“The students, professors, they were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Professor Hudson, and Molly ... in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you, that I was in league with Moriarty the entire time; it was all me. I...created all of those cases, everything-”

“Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met ... the first time we met, you knew all  
about my sister, right?”

“Nobody could be that clever.”

“You could.”

Sherlock laughed then--cold and short, almost unfeeling.  
“I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.”

“No. Alright, stop it now.”  
John started to walk towards the tower. He would go up, go inside and get Sherlock off of that ledge. He would use the imperius curse if he had to.

“No, stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.”

John stopped, backed up to his original spot.  
“All right,” John complied.

Sherlock’s breathing was too rapid. He reached his arm out towards John, as though trying to grasp the man and close the distance between them. “Keep your eyes fixed on me.” Sherlock was now beginning to sound frantic. “Please, will you do this for me?”

“Do what?”

“This phone call–it’s-it’s my note. That’s what people do, don’t they–leave a note?”

John shook his head. What Sherlock was saying-no, Sherlock would never do something like that.  
“Leave a note when?”

Silence. And then, “Goodbye, John.”

John shook his head frantically, never taking his eyes off of Sherlock.  
“No. Don’t.”

He then looked on as Sherlock tossed the phone back on to the rooftop and then gazed out at the sky.  
Like a bird about to fly.

“No. SHERLOCK!” John screamed  
And then he could only watch as Sherlock spread his arms and leaned forward.  
Like a bird about to fly. But instead, Sherlock plummeted to the ground.

It wasn't that long of a fall.

Sherlock hit the ground with a sickening thud. John was stunned into paralysis. But as soon as he saw the other students begin to rush towards the scene, John ran. He ran faster than he ever remembered running in his entire life. Because no one else cared about Sherlock as much as he did. No one.

And they all thought Sherlock was evil. That he was in league with Moriarty, the son of a big Dark Lord enthusiast and a Death Eater himself. That Sherlock was a fake. That everything he had figured out, all of the “cases” he'd solved, he only figured them out because he had known everything from the start. That he was causing all of the problems at Hogwarts.

Hell, Sherlock had just confirmed it, all of it. But no, John refused to believe it. Sherlock wouldn't do that, never. 

And yet, there John was, running towards his best friend in the entire world, who lay in a bloody heap on the ground.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Two months later, John was still reeling from the memory of it all. Sure it had only been two months, but everyone else seemed to be getting along fine. But obvious signs of Sherlock’s absence still lingered.

Professor Hudson, the head of Hufflepuff, still looked sad as John passed her in the halls.  
Lestrade sat in the Gryffindor common room hunched over his Charms homework, not understanding it without Sherlock’s help.  
John didn't see Mycroft around anymore, as the Slytherin had no reason to talk to John anymore.  
John still talked to Molly, the muggle-born Hufflepuff that excelled in Potions and Transfiguration, but she was different now; small and vulnerable. He had heard that she had been the target of a lot of bullying; Sherlock had always been there to protect her.  
Anderson and Donovan sat alone, not talking to anyone. Since Sherlock had been cleared of all affiliations with Moriarty, the headmaster had proven that all of the crimes at Hogwarts had been Moriarty’s design, and said criminal had disappeared from Hogwarts in the aftermath of Sherlock’s suicide, Donovan and Anderson had become all but reclusive, as they blamed themselves for Sherlock’s untimely death. 

As for John, he didn't even pretend to be okay. He wasn't, and everyone knew it.  
It was like the saying goes: you don't know the worth of water until the well is dry, and John sure as hell didn't realize how much Sherlock meant to him until that arse had gone and jumped off the bloody Astronomy Tower; until he wasn't there to be an arse anymore.

So John mostly stuck to the library; it was quiet and not as frequented as one might have thought. And if Sherlock could drown out everything else in that mind of his with information, then John didn't care how unlike Sherlock he was--he was going to give it one hell of a shot.

John sat alone at a table, surrounded by books on potions and charms and enveloped himself in the words and pages and stone hard facts. The library was unusually crowded with students today, and John had trouble concentrating among the hushed whispers.

Suddenly, he noticed some uncharacteristically short, sharp words coming from his left. When he dragged his head out of his book to look, the conversation stopped, and he noticed some of the students staring at him before they dropped their heads. John brushed it off, not caring what anyone had to say about him any more. As soon as he dropped his head, the voices started up again. In the midst of their poorly-disguised conversation, John heard a name.

Sherlock.

John’s head shot up, and he immediately approached the table of students.

“Hi, can I help you?” John asked, annoyed.

“Uh, no, why?” one of the kids laughed.

“Because your conversation seems to be focused around myself and my friend.”  
The boy’s face fell, realizing that John had heard his and his friends’ conversation.

Another kid spoke up, laughing. “Yeah, well, we've heard some, uh, whispers, you might say, about you and that bloke who went and offed himself, Sherlock.”

John could feel his rage boiling in his stomach.

“And we've heard that you two were pretty close, so uh, we were wondering, just how close were you two?”

The entire table erupted in a chorus of laughter at the sight of John’s boiling anger.

John’s hand balled itself into a fist and he felt his muscles tightening, his immediate instinct to punch someone kicked in. Until he felt a hand on his shoulder. John relaxed, and Lestrade pushed in front of him.

“You're really going to make fun of someone who went and fucking committed suicide?” Greg said. “And I’m sure you blokes were part of the problem. Ready to jump on any gossip as soon as you can. Idiots.” The kids looked slightly stunned and awkwardly tried to get back to their work, but Lestrade interrupted them again. “If you ever do anything like that again, I won’t stop him.” And then he and John walked away.

When they were out of sight and out of earshot, Lestade stopped and asked John if he was okay.

“Yeah, yeah I’m-I’m fine. Just about lost my head though. Thanks for stopping me.”  
“Ah, they would’ve deserved it,” Lestrade replied, “but I'm not sure the consequences would've been worth it. How are you doing, John?”

“I’m-I’m okay.”

Lestrade nodded silently. “Have you talked to Mycroft lately?”

“No. No, he doesn't seem to have any interest in me or my whereabouts since...since he doesn’t have to look out for Sherlock any more.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade sighed. “Well, I’ve-uh-been talking to him more lately, and well, it’s nice. You should try talking more to people. It might help.”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

Lestrade patted John on the shoulder comfortingly. “I'll see you around, John.”

As soon as Lestrade had left, John began to walk amongst the stacks of books, looking for something new to look at. While running his hand along the spines of some potions books, John thought he saw someone looking at him through the shelves, but he brushed it off as nothing. John pulled a copy of “Exceptional Potions with Simple Ingredients” from a shelf and began to flip through the pages, looking for something to catch his interest. Someone walked up behind him and grabbed another book, “Simple Potions with Exceptional Ingredients.”

“That one’s a bit comical, actually,” John said offhandedly. He had read it with Sherlock and John had laughed while Sherlock raged about the use of Veela hair in a simple sleeping potion. John shook the memory from his head as the person with “Simple Potions” walked away. John caught a glimpse of the guy before he ducked around the corner; dark curly hair, pale skin and-wait a minute.

“Sherlock?”

John ran around the corner, but the boy was gone. Like a ghost.

“God, I can’t be seeing things now. Can I?” John thought.  
No. That hadn’t been Sherlock. Sherlock was dead. That was just some student who looked like him and dressed like him and-

John moved on to a section of the library with the books about creatures. He was looking through the table of contents in a book about dragons when he saw two piercingly blue eyes looking at him over a pile of books. 

“Gahh!” John almost fell flat on his arse, but knocked several books from their perches in the process of righting himself.

He ran around the shelves, to once again find no one in sight who even resembled Sherlock in the slightest.

“I’m going mad.”


End file.
